I LOVE Deadliest Catch. And it seems I’ve made this reasonably public, as so far this morning three colleagues have linked me to stories about the ludicrous news that they’re going to make a game based on the show.

In case you’re unitiated, Deadliest Catch is a phenomenal Discovery Channel documentary, where we follow the lives of six crews on six boats who take part in Alaskan king crab fishing. Indeed, it doesn’t sound so enticing, does it? Until you realise that this is the deadliest job in the world, where there’s a realistic chance that those who head out for the haul will not be coming home. 20ft seas when the conditions are calm, 40ft waves crashing over the deck, sweeping any who don’t hold onto something either into the barriers, or worse, into the deadly, freezing Bering Sea. It’s intense. (See at the bottom of the post for a clip of the show).

They do it because in a week they can earn a year’s salary. Each season of the show, we see familiar crews and new greenhorns go through exactly the same conditions, but each season it’s just as watchable. This is in no small part due to the super narration by Mike Rowe, on whom I have quite a hefty gay crush.

Right, so the game. Well, let’s let Captain Sig explain the game that he definitely chose to make himself:

The game will follow Sig and his crew on the Northwestern, as well as five other boats, in what they hope will capture something of the experience of being an extreme crab fisherman. It’s described a lot like this:

“Deadliest Catch Alaskan Storm lets gamers captain their own boat in the frenzied search for an undersea jackpot. Gamers select one of five real crab boats, including the Northwestern, Cornelia Marie and Sea Star — all featured on the series, or create and customize their own boat. Gamers then recruit and lead their own crew from a roster of twenty real crab fishermen. Selecting the wrong boat or recruiting the wrong crew member can mean the difference between landing a Bering Sea jackpot or disaster. Lead your fatigued, hungry and hardworking crew in the strategic search for King Crab and Opilio Crab, while battling to secure your catch and livelihood before other captains and crews get to the crab first.”

It’s being developed by Liquid Dragon Studios, who haven’t, well, captured our attention before (but Word Krispies might be brilliant!). Attempting to recreate “34,000 miles of real Bering Sea coastline” might be a bit tricky, what with that distance wrapping around the planet quite a few times, but perhaps they mean square miles.

Captain Sig, a man normally of few words for the camera, apparently said of the game,

“It may not be life or death, but chills went up my spine the first time I saw the Northwestern sink in the game.”

At last, a naval game about something other than hunting submarines.
I think this could turn out really well. A well defined main gameplay mechanic (catching crabs), a bit of RPG and a big slab of management sim.
Now all it needs is to interface with the underwater portion of Spore.

None of the featured crews have lost a life yet, but there have been many deaths during the time they’ve been filming. In previous seasons a boat has gone down with only one member of the crew surviving (they have a camera with the rescue chopper too, so the rescue was shown, along with the rather unpleasant site of an empty safety suit floating on the surface).

I love the Deadliest Catch, me. The game will be shit, though. “Lead your fatigued, hungry and hardworking crew in the strategic search for King Crab and Opilio Crab, while battling to secure your catch and livelihood before other captains and crews get to the crab first.”

There are like 200+ ships in Alaska in crab season, and they all come back with what they need, so it seems that this has been ignored so that the game isn’t even more boring.

I wouldn’t expect to see stringent adherence to the fishing allowance for each boat, either.

It would, however, be nice if you could control one particular deckhand and build him up from greenhorn to captain. Like New Star Soccer, but for Deadliest Catch :D

I watched hours and hours of the show last summer on discovery, much to the horror of my sister. It’s amazing to see how much they can earn, but then how much risk and pain they go through to earn it. There’s something about seeing people hammer ice off their boat before they can do any work that makes you feel pleasantly cosy in your lounge! :D

Also, I always thought the show was popular because of the Bon Jovi tune kicking off the commercials. Or maybe the idea that there are still jobs out there that pay for an honest day’s work and that is intriguing to those of us caught up in the rat race.

Actually coastline-measuring is a bit of a problem due to the fractal nature of what actually makes ‘the edge’ – the smaller your measuring stick, the longer the coastline gets… and that’s ignoring the problem of deciding where you define the waterline re. tides etc.

I’m scarily obsessed with this show – I’ve had Deadliest Catch dreams, watched an entire season marathon while sitting ina bar on the Queen Mary, waiting for my better half to recover from a night of excessive celebration, vociferously defended it against people who really couldn’t care either way.

Game has a huge chance of being utter tripe, but I’ll probably still give it a gander. Here’s hoping for Wii version, allowing me to truly simulate the fun of spending 16 hours chipping ice from the deck of a frozen over crab boat in minus 40 weather. At night.

Ya see you can try to argue the moral implications of a show which has the covert context of “you might see someone die” and while that is part of the idea of the show, i bet if thats your argument for not watching the show then your either the hypocrite who enjoyed watching “COPS” or so anal retentive that your cherry didnt get popped until your wedding at the cathedral at the age of 30. Yeah someone could die at any moment, but you also get to see people do jobs that require real fortitude, just like on shows like COPS, or ICE TRUCKERS, and THATS what makes it entertaining. This is real life, not THE RUNNING MAN okay?

This is shit when the hell will the pc version be ready. As for Greenwavegames well read for yourself here, bickering like little girls not giving any info about anything !!!!!!!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here is a link to their website, dont hold your breath pc fans.http://www.greenwavegames.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=3

you guys have an awesome job some day I would like to work on one of you guys boats once I m the age 18 but why I would like to work with you guys is because I love the outdoors and I like taking riskies with my own life. I think it takes a lot of experions to do what you guys do thats why I would like to fish the King Crab with you guys.